Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

How do I USE all of these licks to actually make music on the guitar? Guitar Lesson – ML123

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to compile licks from various sources into a single lead. I’ll give 4 lick idea examples from previous lessons and show how to stitch them together into a solo.

Deep dives for the licks that I reference in this video:

Lick 1: Triad walk-down from the 1 chord to the 4 chord

Lick 2: Sus4 resolving to a major triad – (In the Part 2 video of EP619)

Lick 3: Bluegrass, Norman Blake harmony

Lick 4: Major Pentatonic scale from just 1 note

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Comments

  1. slopace says

    Yeah Brian, this is huge! I’ve been joining lessons of yours together that were in the same key with minor changes to make them work but you’re teaching us how to use any licks on any style of music which is even better. Very helpful!

  2. Michael W says

    I think this is the best lesson in Active Melody. I know I should be able to just figure these ideas out for myself but it doesn’t happen. Being able to see the ideas in action is great! More!

  3. Michael Allen says

    I like lessons that build off of the previous lessons. It helps me to commit the information to memory and reinforce the skills I need to play music. I have to break things down into sequences of roughly 7 notes and practice them slowly, over and over until I remember them and can sometimes play them up to tempo. This process usually takes more time than I have before the next lesson is available, sometimes causing me to skip the lesson or quit working on the lesson from the week before. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to teach people at different skill levels and musical tastes so I appreciate your approach to helping everyone. I’ve been with you since you charged a one time fee of $5 for access to your lessons. I have faith in you and I am positive that the approach you are taking today will evolve into something that inspires us all.

  7. Chris R says

    G’day Brian,

    I’ve been a subscriber to Active Melody for many years, and I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for the excellent work you do. Your teaching style has always been clear, encouraging, and practical, but this week’s lesson really struck a chord with me.

    The way you demonstrated combining licks and techniques from previous lessons into original pieces feels like the missing link for so many of us at the intermediate stage. Often, what holds players back isn’t knowledge, but creativity — and your approach provides a wonderful pathway to unlocking it.

    I truly appreciate the thought and care you put into every lesson, and I wanted you to know how much value and inspiration your teaching continues to bring.

    More lessons like this one please!

    Best regards,
    Chris Russell
    Sydney, Australia

  11. Douglas W says

    This lesson is absolutely fantastic. I’ve also been learning licks but never figured out how to put them together. Also, love the idea of transferring licks from one genre to another. Never thought of that. Thank you!

  12. Mike R says

    Yes, please do more like this lesson. I would also like to see you take a popular lesson from the past and add additional licks to it, like this lesson, to make the original lesson longer. Thanks

  13. George A says

    Thanks Brian. This is great. You’ve done so many blues lessons in A. How about a lesson to bring those ideas together. Sometimes I feel like I am puking up chucks and hoping they fit into place. Sometimes they do & sometimes they don’t. Keep give us ideas to build on. Much appreciate, George

  14. Jeff H says

    Yes, a fantastic lesson. I have often wondered how we can reuse the lessons of the past. I see one of the members joins the compositions together. Brian, maybe you could revisit some of the past lessons, and do a part 2, with and extension to the original song. I know we are supposed to learn to do this ourselves, but I never seem to find the time.

  15. William K says

    I am in same boat as Michael Allen. Doing lessons like this is very helpful in reinforcing what was covered in previous lessons. A lesson like this integrating and reenforcing previous 4 lessons would be very helpful.

  16. Fred V says

    This is another one of your great lessons; it really helps to connect the ideas. I’ve been a member for a while now, and I look forward to a new lesson every Friday (although here in the Netherlands it’s often a Saturday). I’ve already learned a lot from you, thanks.

  18. Bryan E says

    Brian… This is an amazing lesson. An absolute masterclass. I think your teaching and the site is the best out there, but if I had to point one of the challenging aspects of Active Melody is the vast amount of material on here and how after spending some time “drinking from the firehose,” it becomes very difficult to see how it all fits together. I have a music book of probably 15-20 of your lessons at a giving time, some I can play ok, some I’ve got down fairly well, and some are just way out of my league. What I often can’t see is how they connect together for the purpose of active improvisation or soloing. This lesson very clearly makes that connection in a brand new way for me.

    Bringing back small digestible licks like this, applying then to a chord progression and showing how they work in different keys like this is a game changer. Thank you so much!

    I would vote for this to be a regular and reoccurring series here. You could put so many twists on it to, bringing in different musical genres, timings, tempos, chord substitutions, etc…

    • Michael D says

      I’m echoing the comments of Brian E, he captures exactly what I wanted to say, but much more distinctly than I could have mustered. I also discovered that first lick you cover here is also used in a Chicago blues composition lesson that you put out probably two years ago that I still play all of the time. This allows me to hear that in different context.

      This lesson is so very helpful…

  23. Peter B says

    Hi Brian,
    Most weeks when you start your lesson you say you’re giving us and showing us ideas that we can use in our own improvisation and playing, and now here you are doing just that, proving that it is not as difficult as some of us imagine, thank you.

    This is a great lesson , one which I am sure will help many, me included. I’m in my late 70’s learning is slow and maybe music information takes time to get into my brain and my ‘muscle memory’ bank but I’ll keep on trying, watching you each week one day hoping to maybe I’ll play with the ease and fluency as yourself, here’s hoping.

    Excellent, many thanks, and yes please more like this lesson.

    Best wishes, Peter, Norwich, Norfolk, UK

  24. Rob N says

    Like the other Rob who emailed you, I often spend a week on a lesson, just about manage to play it all through relatively well, then forget most of it by the time the next week comes around. I am gradually gaining lick ideas, but the process is slow.

    Having an easily accessible library of isolated licks on the site would be immensely useful.

    Licks listed under shapes for example. E shape licks; A shape licks, licks over the IV chord or V chord, blues turnaround licks etc. These could be isolated clips from previous lessons with links to the full lesson for context?

  25. Rick S says

    Great little lesson Brian. I’ve been doing these sort of things when I play and discover it along the way by accident. This really opened it up for me. Total light bulb moment as you like to say.

  26. Carole M says

    Howdee Brian,

    Once again this ML123 lesson is just what the doctor ordered, doesn’t get any better, clear, simple, and human.
    Last week’s lesson was somewhat overwhelming for me, not because of you, it’s just my micro brain couldn’t take it all in. But you’ve come to my rescue with this ML just decomposing stuff to a nice extent. So thanks a mill.

    Have fun.

    Cheerio,
    Eric (even though the account is under Carole)

  30. charjo says

    Agreed, Brian, this is a great format for lessons going forward (and challenges). Maybe you could even branch out to progressions more complicated than a 1, 4, 5.
    I find I’m getting better at finding licks around chord shapes but less skilled at transitions between chords. I wonder if you could catalogue some of your various techniques for moving from a I to a IV, IV to a I etc. within a lesson.

  32. Doug C says

    Brian, this is excellent stuff! I would love to see a blues lesson like this.

    Something that would also help in the slow walk-through video is if you would write the backing chord that you are playing over in the upper corner of the screen. That would help me not lose track of where you are in the song.
    Just a thought.

    Active Melody is a gift.

    Thank you,
    Doug C.

  33. Brian P says

    That was fantastic. Really helps me put the chord shapes to use. At first I just played the chord changes of the song, then started playing snippets of each chord. Wow. More like this please.

  36. Gabriel B says

    Thank you so much for this, Brian. This feels like the missing link for me.
    Your lessons on triads and the harmonies within have hugely accelerated my improvement.
    I would love more ‘linking’ lessons.
    I can’t stress enough the value I get from your lessons.
    Gabriel, from France.

  38. Daniel H says

    GRAND SLAM! I frequently request repetition from you for this very reason. You have a wealth of licks, technique, and theory in your library. Helping us stich it together in practical use is perfect. Please do a lot more of these lessons. This lesson lit the musician in me on fire. So inspiring and motivating. Thank you Brian!

  41. Peter A says

    Hi Brian
    Hi from Perth, Western Australia!,
    What an excellent lesson!
    As you indicated during the video as the weeks pass I forget what I have learnt.
    So this lesson :
    Groups bits of previous lessons together
    Adds it to a backing track.

    Personally I prefer rock music however as you have previously alerted whatever you tech us can be applied to any genre of music!

    So a Big Thanks for helping me along the journey of learning guitar!

  42. Lars J says

    Hi Brian! Nice lesson! I use to do like this. I combined a lot of your lesson to sit and play by myself without backing track.
    Example: Start with EP374 ( G major )then directly to EP 568 ( Gmajor) then EP558 etc….
    Lars

  43. Rob S says

    Thank you Brian! You nailed it with this one in so many ways. It may not click with someone just surfing you tube that stumbles across this lesson but for your regular subscribers and followers this revisits and reinforces previous phrases and vocabulary in new ways. I love how you show is how to alter a riff to see it in a new light. Im sure you cant do this every week but perhaps on some regular schedule you could revisit prior lessons in some sort of ‘Integrate series’.

    Thank you for all you so for ao many of us!

  44. Ann N says

    Once again, you nailed it! I have been a member for over 2 years and was taking lessons but stopped those and have been concentrating on yours. If you do one that I don’t think I can do, I just go back to the library and find one that I can. I want to thank you for listening to your subscribers to get ideas of lessons to do. This one was brilliant and would love to see more of same. Keep up the great work!!

  47. Jelmer L says

    Hi Brian, I have been walking around with exactly this question but never posted it. This lesson was beyond great! This will help me not to see each lesson as a thing on its own but to actually combine and apply what I learn in different keys and genres.

  49. MANUEL M says

    C’est une leçon très intéressante. Faites en d’autres. Maintenant je vais mettre en application ce que vous venez de m’apprendre en respectant la carrure et les changements d’accords.

  50. Stewart K says

    Looks like you have a real winner here. My guess is Rob captured what many of us wanted but didn’t know how to express it. It would be great to have one of these every couple of months (or more if it makes sense)

  52. Barbara J says

    Just. 3 minutes in and I remember learning that 1 to the 4 move several years ago in the Jingle Bells lesson. So you are definitely correct when you say that the things we think we may have forgotten are still there, just stored away in the long term memory part of our brain. When you mentioned the terms major-major, minor-minor, it jumped right out to the fore.

  53. Bruce G says

    Yes, yes, and yes. Fantastic lesson! Please do more of these!

    I have been trying something similar on my own with last week’s lesson EP 620, EP548, and ML 119…all Bluegrass lessons in the key of G…. Easier because all in the same key and style. This lesson hit it out of the park!

    Thank you and keep doing these kinds of lessons for sure!

  54. Jeffrey S says

    This clearly illustrates something you frequently say “take one idea” and shows the impact these ideas can have in the big picture. Love it maybe do one of these every fifth lesson or so.

  57. clay says

    Yes this is fantastic Brian!!! You said these are easy for you-but SO HELPFUL for us!!! I would love to see you do these like maybe once a month……so USEFUL to see how you can pull licks in from various lessons and make them work together!!! AND you have such a huge back catalog of lessons you can pull from!!! The possibilities are endless!!! Love it.

  58. Randy P says

    Consider me as “jumped on the bandwagon”….Would be great to see more lessons tying previous lessons together. What I love about your site is that you teach useful licks and techniques that allow me to exercise in my own creative space, rather than just playing someone else’s music……

  59. William Y says

    I’ve been a subscriber for many years, and this is your best lesson. This lesson’s approach helps put licks together and helps me learn them in a fashion that I can adapt them to my own playing.

  60. mritalian says

    Yeap!Yeap!Yeap! I would definitely like to see more lessons like this one . I have learned a lot from you since joining. Music is a never ending journey. I can only speak for myself but I can now hear myself doing take offs on your lessons, this is helps pull it together into the next level as I see it. Thank you Brian

  64. Chuck S says

    Brian, this was very good – of course as usual, it will take some time to fully digest and understand it all for real. Your explanations are excellent and I always learn something new.

  72. John D says

    Thank you, Brian and thank you Rob, after last weeks micro lesson I just wanted more of that. I loved it so much so I searched solo blues in A and I’ve been trying to patch things Together this past week. It’s all out there thank you Brian being able to search these lessons and put them all together it’s just fantastic

  75. Georg B says

    Hi Brian,
    Thank you for picking up on Rob’s idea. With what he wrote and the way you immediately implemented Rob’s idea into the current episode, you both hit the nail right on the head. It is extremely helpful to recap what you learned at the end of a learning session or even after several learning sessions and put it into a new context to apply it there. I have exactly the same problem that Rob described, namely that I learn an episode within a week, sometimes it takes two or three weeks, and then I more or less master the content. However, after a few weeks I seem to have forgotten everything. I can only encourage you to put out an episode after a few episodes serving as a review and as an opportunity for us members of Active Melody to put our newly learned content into a new context into practice – just as you did with this episode. I would very much welcome episodes like this as a regular feature of your publications. Maybe put out one of these review episodes once a month. I think that would really help me and many others on Active Melody to improve our learning progress.
    It’s great that you’re always open to these good suggestions!
    All the best,
    Georg

  78. Nick P says

    So many positive comments here and I can only add to them – this was a very good lesson, and resulted in a very practice-friendly composition! I often try to combine lessons together to make a longer whole piece E.g. 358 & 348. Some other people have made similar suggestions, and I’ve made screen grabs of their comments 😁

  79. Garry W says

    Brian I really enjoyed this lesson, and it was very beneficial to me. I thought that I was by myself spending time on lessons, only to find out when I tried to play a lead I would totally flub it. Yes I would like to see more of this kind of lesson.

  81. Matt C says

    yes, Brian, please, more of this. Recycling licks should be obvious as stated higher up in the comments, but somehow it is not. It would be great to see such ideas in different chord situations, rhythms and even bring some of it into the realm of rhythm guitar. Here’s hoping to keep you busy for a while…

  82. Barry H says

    Yes Brian this is a great idea, I have been listening to Tony Joe White recently. His stuff is just my thing, maybe try some of his laid back grooves. Thanks for the great lessons.
    All the best
    Barry

  83. Michael G says

    I found this lesson incredibly helpful. I’ve been experimenting with incorporating pieces of your lessons into different songs. This week’s lesson introduced me to the concept of building more of these parts to create a new song. It was a game-changer for me. Reinforcing these concepts will be very beneficial in not only learning them but also recalling them. Please continue to teach lessons like this. I also want to express my gratitude for your excellent teaching style. I’m so grateful for all the help you’ve given me to improve my guitar playing skills.

  91. Jim C says

    Awesome lesson Brian. Yes keep doing this type of lesson going. I’m a 67 year old guy from KC and have been a member for years. I spend most my time playing Bluegrass, Honky Tonk Country and Old R&R peppy and danceable ! In the style of Norman Blake, I loved when Leon Russell did several albums under the name Hank Wilson kind, of old country hillbilly. On the Honky Tonk Country side for me it’s Dwight Yoakum,Merle Haggard, and Waylon. On R&R I play songs like Lil Runaway by Dell Shannon, I Fought the Law by the Bobby Fuller Four, and Time won’t Let Me by the Outsiders. Didn’t mean to ramble on, but I am always trying to find licks and runs and Rythmn patterns to this style of music. You have been a great for helping along so far. If you could point me to existing lessons I would appreciate. This lesson you just did is perfect for what I’m looking for. Thanks for everything you have done so.

    Thanks
    Jim Caples

  98. Rob M says

    Def love this concept for lessons. Very helpful. Hoping u can discuss the difference between patterns (caged) and positions (scales). Sometimes i get confused when someone says position one and I start thinking about pattern one. Is there an easy way to differentiate .
    Thanks

  100. Randall W says

    OMG! You NAILED it. We need help improvising with the snippets you teach us, rather than just memorizing songs. THIS IS IT!
    We are gaining tools, but don’t know how and when to use them. More lessons like this! NICE

  101. johnnyjoel says

    As a member for several years I think this is absolutely the best lesson you have ever done! Thanks to Rob for the comment and you for your response. I always love the backing tracks you do. This one was perfect for the lesson. Just plain and simple!

  104. Edmund S says

    I must agree with all here…..this was a great lesson that gave meaning to the 4 before. By all means do more like this!
    I enjoyed the lessons preceding this and now you have made them all even more meaningful.

  107. Garry D says

    Hi Brian
    I have been watching your amazing lessons for a year or two now and you are a great teacher, everything is always clear, but like the guy who emailed you I find it difficult to remember stuff. Also I find the pace a little overwhelming sometimes, though I appreciate the content which you put in which is always valuable. Slowing down everything by stop/starting the video helps me gte the most from your work.
    This lesson and the concept you have come to in your teaching is incredible and really helpful to bed these ideas into my playing. I know you always say that the material you teach can be played in different keys etc., but to see it demonstrated so beautifully by yourself is so helpful to get the ideas in my brain. Thank you so much!

  109. Chris D says

    A little late to the party but this lesson was really helpful -jamming with my 70 plus year old garage band buddies in a couple of hours and I am going to try some of this lesson out. Thanks!

  114. John I says

    Well, this one knocked it out of the park for me, Brian. I’m always trying to make variations of a composition by using phrases and licks from past lessons.

    But here you have so elegantly threaded bits from 4 very different styles into a catchy, melodic piece. What a truly great lesson! Thank you!

  116. Jeremy F says

    This was great, Brian. You often talk about associating licks to chord shapes and it seems like this lesson focussed mainly on E-shaped chord licks. I’ld love to see lessons on licks we can associate with a couple other major chord shapes and a couple of minor chord shapes…. and even more licks for the E shape. Keep it coming.

  117. Laurence R says

    Well Brian, I often feel grateful for one of your lessons and mean to send you a comment and then don’t get around to it.
    But this one is SO good that I just had to add to the masses of praise that people have already posted. It’s hard to think of a better lesson, I don’t know how you keep on doing what you do, and doing it so well.
    Like everyone else I’d like more of these. Crucially I find with lessons it has to be something that I desperately want to play as soon as I hear it- what hooked me in as a subscriber was your ‘improvisation around a melody’ based on ‘When the Saints go marching in’ (EP385) and the beautiful Dickey Betts style piece in EP404. I was amazed all those years ago that I could actually play those pieces and I still do- they are what I use to see if a guitar is in tune. (And I still can’t play them like you! You are a very self-deprecating and underrated guitarist.)
    Obviously you’re going to do more of these type of lessons. I’d like a country one, a Dickey Betts one, a Blues one, a Bluegrass one, etc, always assuming you can keep coming up with these wonderful melodic pieces that make us just have to learn them.

    Very many thanks for all you do
    Laurence R
    Glastonbury, Somerset, England

  123. Michael J says

    G’day Brian,
    This here lesson ( I say lesson, but I just love playing along with you!) Is purely solid gold. By all means continue with this concept because, as Rob said we forget so soon after. The absolute bonus for yourself and for everyone of us AM people, is that you have so very much to draw from which will ultimately reinforce everyone’s confidence and ability and most importantly, our enjoyment with revisiting some of these previous nuggets of gold which makes us think “Yeah, I’m a guitar player!” All from your great ability and humility to teach.
    M.J., Kilmore, Victoria, Australia.

  124. houliAK says

    Wow! I’m a little late getting to this lesson but I can tell by the overwhelming response….you’ve hit a “ chord” with this one. So many well stated responses that I will simply add my support for more lessons like this one.

  129. Michael G says

    I’ve asked for a lesson like this 2 or 3 times but in reverse. I wanted licks that might be used in 1 or 2 12 bar cycle throughs put over DIFFERENT rhythms and chords/ styles. This kind of the same thing. Thanks Brian this is what I needed.

  130. Aaron R says

    Yes!!!!!
    What a facepalm moment I had watching this lesson. Lol.
    This is EXACTLY what it’s all about.
    Why I haven’t stumbled on this before makes me laugh.
    I’ve been a subscriber for many many years and I have to admit, THIS one wasn’t only a light bulb, it was a flash bang. I honestly feel enlightened.
    I’m not sure what the best way would be to incorporate this into your planning, but I think a really quick lesson every couple months doing exactly what you did here would be phenomenal.
    Thanks so much for everything you do Brian.

  139. EELRM says

    Wonderful lesson Brian, as they all are. Awhile ago you got me into 3rds and 6ths. Wow, and now this, I thought I’d never get this far with actually playing pretty music. I’m so glad I found you and AM. I recommend you to everyone any time. Thanks for sharing your ability and time with all of us.

  140. Michael B says

    This was a great lesson and would love to see more like this. Really appreciate the time and effort you put into these lessons Brian – it is helping improve my playing and more importantly my knowledge. Thank you.

  144. David C says

    Brian, I have been having the same issues as many others here in synthesizing the volume of material that you present. The microlessons have been helping in this regard. I do not usually have time to do a deep dive into each lesson, so I get what I can and move on. I do this knowing that you usually circle around to the same concepts periodically. However, the format of this lesson really helps pull the concepts together and put them to use. It was really helpful that you added the links to the relevant lessons keyed up in the location of the licks used. Can you do this type of lesson on a regular schedule, like every fifth week?

    Thanks for all of the great work that you do!

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